SMART board to consider placing sales tax extension on March ballot

The North Bay’s commuter rail agency on Wednesday is poised to advance a proposed ballot measure that would extend a quarter-cent sales tax, the system’s main source of funding.

The proposal, which would ask voters to renew the tax in March nearly a decade before it is set to expire, will be considered by the 12-member Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit board during its bimonthly meeting at SMART headquarters in Petaluma. Public feedback will be taken during the review, which includes an updated spending plan produced by agency staff.

Since April, top officials with SMART have signaled a desire to refinance growing debt by asking voters for a 30-year extension of the tax, which generated $41.2  million in the fiscal year that ended June 30. Without the extension, SMART staff warned in August the rail system will need to cut up to $9 million a year from train service and its workforce.

Any extension of the sales tax would require approval from two-thirds of voters in Sonoma and Marin counties.

SMART General Manager Farhad Mansourian and Erin McGrath, the agency’s chief financial officer, have built their case for the successor to 2008’s Measure Q through a strategic plan that lays out the future of the rail line. Their spending plan, which was unveiled last month, details how future tax revenues through 2059 would be used. If passed, the agency’s $17 million reserve fund would be tapped to cover rising debt service costs before the bond payments are restructured in 2023.

Refinancing will save SMART an estimated $12 million per year to maintain existing operations and allow for future extensions north to Healdsburg and Cloverdale, according to SMART staff. Still, board members recognize the weight of their upcoming decision - one of the most momentous since voters gave the agency the nod in 2008.

“It’s highly significant. We’ve been successful, but we need to keep moving forward,” said Supervisor Shirlee Zane, a 10-year SMART board member. “I think we absolutely need the extension, and the sooner the better … to become more convenient and affordable to those who can’t currently afford it.”

SMART service is scheduled to begin at its future southern terminus in Larkspur, as well as a new station in downtown Novato, by the end of the year. The $55 million extension north to Windsor is fully funded, with service expected to start by the end of 2021, and the agency remains in negotiations over construction of a second station in Petaluma.

Passage of a tax measure, however, would not provide SMART with the $364 million it estimates it needs to extend service to the planned northern terminus in Cloverdale, nor an estimated $135 million to complete an adjacent ?70-mile, multiuse pathway for bicycles and pedestrians.

Wednesday’s board meeting is the SMART board’s first opportunity to vote on the proposed ballot measure. The deadline for submitting all necessary paperwork to get the sales-tax extension on the March 2020 ballot is Dec. 6, and agency staff has scheduled final approval for the measure on second reading at the board’s Nov. 6 meeting.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin Fixler at 707-521-5336 or kevin.fixler@pressdemocrat.com.